


Hung Thin Between the Dark and Dark

by cookingwithcyanide



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous Character Death, Amputation, Cannibalism, M/M, but god hes so hungry and really what else does he have to lose, love is a home cooked meal, maybe he bleeds out maybe dear charlie pays a visit, maybe he wakes up tomorrow and its all been a cruel dream, probably he shouldnt turn wide hungry eyes towards his only companion in this barren freezing land, the food is scarce, the nights are long, the wild and fear-frantic butchering of ones lover for the meat on their bones, uh oh! wilson gets a little hungie!, what's a man to do?, who's to say!, winters are hard in the constant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:08:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26473168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookingwithcyanide/pseuds/cookingwithcyanide
Summary: Winters in the constant are hard. The nights are the hardest of all. The bitter cold and ever-dwindling stock of stale autumn jerky and scarce forage in the icebox are bad enough, but the mounting hours of darkness make Wilson a twitchy, paranoid mess... They are both starving, but Wilson’s mind is atrophying alongside his stomach, and Maxwell has no idea what to do about it.The wan, watery sun begins its drip below the horizon. On the edge of the clearing they have their camp huddled in, Wilson drops his axe and hunches over against the tree he has been chopping- whether in hunger or terror or the convulsions of more manic laughter it’s hard to say. Maxwell takes a measured sip of his thin broth and pulls his coat closer around his shoulders as icy wind tears through the barren trees, ushering with it an uneasy dread in the pit of Maxwell's stomach- or perhaps it’s just another cramp. Spring could not come soon enough.
Relationships: Maxwell & Wilson (Don't Starve), Maxwell/Wilson (Don't Starve)
Kudos: 22





	Hung Thin Between the Dark and Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rhysbees](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhysbees/gifts).



> The title comes from the John Updike poem January  
> "The days are short,  
> The sun a spark  
> Hung thin between  
> The dark and dark."
> 
> My everlasting love to my dearest Rhys, both in general and for the art he began just as soon as reading the shadow of a paragraph of a draft I sent to him and Kai. Please appreciate it, and him, and also me while you're at it, for posting about 700some words of self indulgence after a four month dry spell and making MY thoughts YOUR problem. You're very welcome, by the way.

Winters in the constant are hard. The nights are the hardest of all. The bitter cold and ever-dwindling stock of stale autumn jerky and scarce forage in the icebox are bad enough, but the mounting hours of darkness make Wilson a twitchy, paranoid mess. It’s not as though Wilson is not always something of a twitchy, paranoid mess, but the dusky, desolate drag of winter practically reduces him to a tittering shell of a man. It pains Maxwell to see his partner staring into the fire all day, rocking on his feet and flinching at every crackle and pop of the logs. It irks him in equal measure to constantly be disturbed by Wilson’s strange, nervous humming and the way he shambles about the camp at odd hours to redo his inventories of their medical chest and the nigh-empty icebox. They are both starving, but Wilson’s mind is atrophying alongside his stomach, and Maxwell has no idea what to do about it. There are no flowers this time of the season, and no mushrooms that would be worth the frigid trek to retrieve them. Instead, Maxwell talks to him in low, soothing tones until it seems like he might be listening and tries to make scraggly carrots in hot water into enough soup for two. He tries to ignore how much further their meagre resources would stretch with only one of them there, and how easy it would be to slip a few extra slivers of meat into his own bowl before Wilson makes his way back. Survival has meant working together- learning how to cohabitate with some amount of diplomacy. One could call it compassion, even, if one was feeling generous. It’s been a very long time since he has felt so helpless.

The wan, watery sun begins its drip below the horizon. On the edge of the clearing they have their camp huddled in, Wilson drops his axe and hunches over against the tree he has been chopping- whether in hunger or terror or the convulsions of more manic laughter it’s hard to say. Maxwell takes a measured sip of his thin broth and pulls his thin coat closer around his thin shoulders as icy wind tears through the barren trees, ushering with it an uneasy dread in the pit of Maxwell's stomach- or perhaps it’s just another cramp. Spring could not come soon enough.

* * *

Maxwell snaps awake into darkness in the freezing winter, the fire’s low glow barely creeping into the tent. There is a weight on his chest pinning him down, and he can feel his wrists, ankles, and neck all bound tightly to the ground. Were it not for the itch of the straw bedroll under his back, the smell of woodsmoke and damp wool, and the near-silence, Maxwell would be convinced that this had all been some cruel dream and that he was bound back to the throne. He is still not totally able to convince himself that it hadn’t all been some cruel dream and that he was not bound back to the throne. He can hear, once he orients himself just a little more, Wilson’s shaky breaths above him; a familiar sleepy sound in the evening by this point, unsettlingly warped now into something strained and uneven. Nights in winter are cold. They are long, and pitch dark, and horribly quiet. All he can hear is rapid, shallow breathing. All he can see is the glint of eyes, the glint of teeth, the glint of an axe just barely flashing in the firelight.

Wilson taps the blade thoughtfully against his left shoulder, then the right, muttering disjointedly under his breath. "The left so he's still useful, but the dominant hand will have more muscle on it... more meat... perhaps then a leg? With the last of the honey? No, no, no, too much trouble to move then- maybe with a staff?'' Maxwell gasps through his nose and tries to work his mouth to talk Wilson down but it's muffled around the leather shoved between his teeth. Wilson goes very quiet and very still for the barest fleeting moment at the urgent sound, eyes like frantic saucers; round lunatic moons in the dark. Then, all in a rush, there is a  _ thwack  _ as the axe comes down, a sickening crunch and searing pain as Wilson tears the poorly-severed arm from its joint and away from his body, the wrist snapping distantly from where it's still trapped against the floor of the tent. He scuttles away into the open darkness outside, eyes wild and never meeting Maxwells, leaving Maxwell howling around his gag, pinned by three limbs and his throat to the cold, soaked ground.

The last thing Maxwell hears before passing out to the blood rapidly guttering out of the stump of his shoulder is the clatter of the crockpot and Wilson’s high, discordant humming. The last thing Maxwell sees before the static black creeping into his field of vision overtakes him, head swimming with the exquisite agony, is darkness as the tent’s flaps flutter closed in a gust of bitter wind. Nights in winter are cold. They are hard, and oppressively quiet, and terribly dark. In the last second before Maxwell slips away from consciousness, the darkness draws closer.

**Author's Note:**

> Once again let us shower Rhys with thanks and love for illustrating my bullshit. I beseech you all to get YOU a mans.
> 
> Speaking of that particular mans; we play as Max and Wilson ourselves and on occasion he'll feed me raw green mushrooms until I go just ABSOLUTELY batshit crazy so he can mine my nightmare demons for nightmare fuel to stock what we affectionately refer to as his "ketamine chest." It's all very romantic and we're incorrigible flirts on voice call the entire time. I still think Wilson deserves to cut off his arm in recompense, as a treat.


End file.
